Robert Reich on the Wal-Mart Effect

Former Secretary of Labor under President Clinton, Robert Reich, wrote an Op-Ed piece in today's NY Times on Wal-Mart's attempts to advance into New York City and elsewhere. Wal-Mart was stopped from being included in a new mall in Queens, but their worldwide network is still present everywhere. But who is to blame he asks.

But isn't Wal-Mart really being punished for our sins? After all, it's not as if Wal-Mart's founder, Sam Walton, and his successors created the world's largest retailer by putting a gun to our heads and forcing us to shop there.
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We can blame big corporations, but we're mostly making this bargain with ourselves. The easier it is for us to get great deals, the stronger the downward pressure on wages and benefits. Last year, the real wages of hourly workers, who make up about 80 percent of the work force, actually dropped for the first time in more than a decade; hourly workers' health and pension benefits are in free fall. The easier it is for us to find better professional services, the harder professionals have to hustle to attract and keep clients. The more efficiently we can summon products from anywhere on the globe, the more stress we put on our own communities.

I know I try my hardest to buy local and from the corner store, but I do shop at big stores like Target about once a month. The low prices are just too much to pass up. Money is tight for me. Tighter than I'd like to be, but that's the bed I've made and I have to sleep in it. I'm trying to spend less now and save more for a rainy day, but it's just so hard.

It's frustrating to be a part of the mechanism that is slowly destroying the communities I want to keep alive.

Comments

[Marjo M]

i've a friend who runs one of these small businesses- david and goliath, what have you.

the price is hard... many people look at these smaller retailers and think that they should just lower their prices to compete.

but you're talking expensive small group health plans-- not to mention the fact that bigger stores like Walmart get massive price breaks on the same merchandise that a smaller merchant pays more to market value.

you know what he always says? sounds too simple, really. ya can help, even if you don't buy there. spread the word about the store. i guess to whomever will listen, lol...

i betcha there are doctorates being written around walmart's de-culturalization of america and beyond.

hehe... diarrhea of the mouth...

I feel you on this post, Darlin. I'm almost afraid to leave this city because I like not being ABLE to seek out the big C's for my needs.